How Many Hearts Must I Break Before I Find You?
by a62belle
Summary: or the times Skye and Coulson had their hearts broken before they finally realised they loved each other. Skoulson


It was an old red corvette, the car his father owned in his childhood. It was an old car, on a government salary for an administrative worker his father really couldn't afford anything better, but he was an excellent mechanic, so it worked exactly like new.

"One day, you'll own this car too," his father promised him when he was 8 years old. He had nodded quietly. Like the Coulson before him, he was quiet, with a fondness for red corvettes and Captain America. His father didn't know he knew he liked Captain America. His father didn't nearly suspect his young son had this private piece of knowledge. At age 8, Phillip George Coulson was more observant than most.

As he grew older, his friend bought him a toy gun. He loved it, shooting with incredible accuracy for a pre-teen. His father was disappointed.

"Don't be a field agent, Phillip. It's boring and dangerous work. You'll never make it," his father had warned him at a young age, "you'll face the most terrible types of heartbreak, all kinds of sadness. You'd make a much better business man."

So he had listened to his father and stowed away his toy gun. Quiet, observant Phillip George Coulson. He did well in school, his teachers never had a bad word to say about him. His classmates did, they were never able to understand the queer Phillip, but her never cared. For twelve years, he worked and toiled under the supervision of his father, his mentor, the one person whom he strived to be. As much as he loved his mother, it was hard to admire a cleaner. So he worked, and he strived to meet his father's ridiculous expectations. Never rebelled for an easier life. Never gave his father a reason to deny him the red corvette when he could drive.

Until, of course, his father crashed the car.

It was the summer of 1976. Emotions were running high. The Cold Ward had finally ended, a new President of Uruguay had been elected, the CN tower built and the USA was celebrating it's 200th year of independence. For Phillip Coulson, it was the end of the world.

His father had crashed the car down the cliff on his way to pick him up from school. It was supposed to be a special treat. It was his worse nightmare.

He remembers the sad faces, the consolations, the whispers of 'Coulson's boy'.

It was that moment he decided to join a government agency, he didn't care which one. His father had warned him about heartbreak. He didn't think his heart could be broken any further. He joined S.H.I.E.L.D. after he was offered a scholarship at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, where he could complete his degree in Military Studies, a degree only S.H.I.E.L.D. offered.

He slaved and worked for his organisation, very much like the way he had worked for his father. He never took any heartbreak until he died, and even then it wasn't as heartbreaking as seeing his father dead because of him. His mother died of old age the week he 'died'. He was given Lola after his resurrection. After all those years, he finally managed to get his Red Corvette.

He never thought he could be more heartbroken.

He was wrong of course. He saw Skye, lifeless, lying on the floor of Ian Quinn's basement, a trail of blood on the floor. He had taken her into his arms. It had struck him suddenly.

He loved her.

Strange how someone can strike you. Strange how you only know you love someone when it's too late.

But it wasn't too late. He had managed to save her, at the cost of Hydra finding out about GH325, but he's been heartbroken enough in his entire life, cost enough lives in his rather simple one. He didn't need the woman he loved to be added to the list. When she was recovering, he just stayed there, paralysed.

He refused to say anything when she awoke. Because he froze. He had had his Cellist, and he still remembered what had happened to that. Another heart broken. Another hope crushed. Skye didn't deserve that. So he buttoned his mouth, let Jemma do all the talking.

She couldn't talk to Skye with the love he had, but it was better than him breaking all over again.

It was a flawed mission to begin with. Two of the operatives were Hydra, but they only found out too late. Ward had shot the man they thought to be the Clairvoyant. Ward was Hydra. Blake was in critical condition.

Two weeks later, the rag-tag team now called the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. received devastating news. Agent Blake was dead. Coulson sees Skye's look on her face when she gets the news. She withholds her tears as she runs down to the punching bag, hitting everything she's got.

She stays that way for days.

Jemma told her not to; it was bad for her health.

Fitz told her not to; they needed her as Deputy Director.

Triplett told her not to; she was over-working herself.

May told her not to; she was worrying the whole team.

She always replied with the same dead tone, "I'm training."

Coulson sees her 'training' at the punching bag, he walks purposefully to her. "I'm training," she says in her dead voice, hearing him move closer to her.

His father was right, being a government agent did mean so much heartbreak. In a spur-of-the-moment decision, he stops the punching bag, pushing her away from the punching bag to the nearby wall.

"Let me train!" she shouts, struggling against him as he does his best to restrain her.

"Oh my god, Skye," he says, noticing the blood on her hands, "let Jemma see this."

"No!" she screams, fighting with all her might as Coulson still tries to restrain her.

"You need medical help, Skye, you're emotionally unstable," Coulson tries again.

"The very first mission I designed killed an agent!" she screams again, kicking Coulson in the groin. As he doubles over in pain, she kicks him again, punching him in the face until he's bloody. He doesn't dare defend himself, he's afraid he might hurt her.

As he's on his way to losing consciousness, Skye stops her attack. Oh my god, what kind of monster am I? she thinks as she sees the bloody, suffering mass in front of her.

"AC, I'm so sorry," she says in a flurry of desperation as she bends down next to him, "what do I do? Jemma! I need you down here," she shouts through her ear piece, "AC's down!"

The said Jemma Simmons appears very quickly, and calls May and Triplett for help. They move the unconscious Coulson to a bed in the lab, where Simmons works on his injuries.

"No internal damage, that's good news," she says while conducting her thorough investigation.

The team doesn't bother to ask Skye what's happened, no-one needs two PhDs in unpronounceable fields to find out what happened, it could hardly have be an accident. It's all my fault again, Skye thinks. A mountain almost crushed AC because I got shot. A senior, trustworthy S.H.I.E.L.D. agent just died because of my flawed plan. Now AC is unconscious because I attacked him after he tried to help me. Raina was right, I'm a monster. Skye says she's going to her bunk to de-compress, nobody acknowledges her. Of course, since she just attacked their boss.

AC walks knocks on the door of her bunk 6 hours later, when he's cleared by Jemma.

"Hello," he says, breathing shallowly, he had sustained a broken rib or two in the attack and breathing was still difficult.

"AC," Skye breathes, not looking at the man. She'd fallen in love with him, she realised. How long it takes to find something so obvious! And she went to hurt him, just because she was hurt. She can't bear to raise her head and see his face, see the pain in his eyes, see the man she's learnt to love. He walks over to her, kneeling down so she's looking at him. He's face, bruised and slightly swollen tears Skye apart.

"Get away from me, I'm a monster!" Skye shouts, but he just moves nearer.

"You do realise you've got to do a lot more to make me not forgive you, right?" he asks, breathing softly as the tears fall down her cheeks.

"How can you say that, shake off all my mistakes? I betrayed the team, almost got you and Fitz killed, caused a reliable senior agent to die a sad, meaningless death at the hands of Deathlock, and I've hurt you, badly," her voice breaks, "how do you manage to forgive it all?"

You really have no idea, do you, Coulson thinks.

"I don't know, it's just you're the first person to ever see me as…..me. My father saw me as Coulson junior. My mother saw me as a memory to my father. S.H.I.E.L.D. saw me as a dedicated agent. May saw me as a fellow agent whom she grew emotionally attached-to enough to protect. I guess it's a good time as any one to say," Coulson pauses for a while, his courage failing him, "I love you."

Skye sits stunned. Did he just say he loves her?

"You mean as a daughter?" she asks, afraid beyond anything.

"Oh, if you prefer to think of me as a father-figure, that's okay too," he says, a heartbroken look on his face as he stands up, turning around to leave.

"No, wait, AC! I love you too!" she says, grasping onto the thin thread of sanity she has left.

He turns around abruptly, as she crashes her lips onto him until he breaks off the kiss, whimpering in pain. "I'm so sorry," she says as she lowers him softly into her bunk. The bed's small, but there's never been a place where either of them have felt as safe as in each other's arms.

Coulson's still sleeping in Skye's bunk, while Skye slips down to the cargo ramp. The SUV is out on service. Deciding Coulson would probably not be as willing to kill her, she grabs her computer, settling down to the front seat of Lola. How'd he get so interested in such stuff anyway, she wonders, one day, she's have to ask him. "

Skye," Jemma says timidly, approaching the hacker, "May wants to speak to you."

"May," Skye says, acknowledging the senior agent as she walks into the briefing room. "Skye," May replies curtly, with Triplett by her side.

"I just wanted to apologise for losing my temper, I really shouldn't have. It's just, my mission caused an agent his life, it's hard to live with that," Skye says immediately.

"Apology accepted," Triplett says, with a wave of his hand, "but that is unfortunately not what we want to talk to you about."

"You see, we just noticed Agent Coulson never left your bunk last night from when he visited you," May continues in a subtly-accusing voice.

Upon hearing this, a red, hot flame burns inside Skye. How dare they! She was the Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. for god's sake, this was obvious insubordination.

"I slept with Director Coulson, yes, but I didn't sleep sleep with him if that's what you're suggesting," Skye snaps back, her voice dangerously cold.

"Unfortunately, your scenario could cause one to, very easily, think differently," May replies curtly. "We're not saying you're in the wrong," Jemma says quickly, trying to avoid fanning the flames, "we're just saying you need to be more careful."

Skye walks away quickly, moving to Lola for some much needed me time.

A half hour later, Coulson wakes up, Skye, upon hearing this, decides to move out of Lola and greet him a good morning. Unfortunately, such a route leads Skye outside the Briefing room, where the team is offering another of their inappropriate behaviour talks.

"Phil, I think you should know better than to spend a night with a subordinate," May's accusing voice rings out to the abashed Coulson.

"This is a new S.H.I.E.L.D. May, I'm sure we could get rid of some protocol," he mumbles in reply, before walking out. He doesn't stay anywhere alone with Skye after that, refusing to meet her gaze.

Another heart broken, but for once it isn't his.

It's Skye's.

"AC, look at me!" Skye shouts in a fit of temper at the senior agent who's officially her SO.

He looks up into her eyes and she sees a blankness, a forced will to live.

"Want to take a trip in Lola?" Skye offers, "Don't you dare deny me the chance to show how perceptive I am!"

Coulson smiles slightly, and nods, calling in co-ordinates for the place they should land in.

They drive a little down the road, no more S.H.I.E.L.D. Hub to give them missions. Coulson knows the place they've landed in too well, in fact, it used to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. asset's land.

After that certain asset died, she had given the land to S.H.I.E.L.D. to be used as an application centre as well as a community club to use as a free-range shooting ground. It was there Nick Fury made the offer to Phillip Coulson that he could simply not refuse, the day when he opened himself up to worse heartbreak, but, at the same time, a place where he finally belonged.

After S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fall, the community club took over the entire ground, now converting it to a full-facilities daytime resort.

"What is this place?" Skye asks as she digs into a plate of Fish and Chips Coulson had ordered for her, "Their Fish and Chips are to die for." Coulson smirks as he eats his steak, who is just as good.

"I'll bring you to a training ground, and I'll tell you then," he replies, watching his angel finish up her food in haste, much to his amusement. After lunch, they move to a less-occupied ware-house. The fitness equipment is both low-key and fascinating. Skye, for one, enjoys taking a punch at a well-made punching bag off the corner of the warehouse.

"So, what is this place?" she asks as Coulson offers her an energy bar he bought at a nearby convenience store. "This was where Fury offered me the S.H.I.E.L.D. scholarship, " he says, "After I died, this was also where he gave me Lola as a sort of apology gift."

"Lola was a gift?" Skye asks in horror, she didn't want to think that her AC's most prized possession was given to him by a man that had tortured him multiple times in a matter of weeks.

"Oh, I couldn't possibly afford her on my government's salary," he jokes, "Yeah, it was a gift from Fury. "

She smiles, listening to the stories of Coulson she's wanted to know for so long, from his father's death to his own, how he his father had only loved him because of what he could do to his service, a mother who simply listened and abided by his Dictator father's rule, how he had suffered from too much belief in S.H.I.E.L.D. She listens with as much interest as possible.

Once upon a time, there was a girl called Mary-Sue Poots. She was an orphan and a coward from the Rising Tide. She was stupid enough to hack S.H.I.E.L.D. to find out information from her parents. Miles had lied to her, said he knew all about her parents to try and get her into him. When she 'fell in love' with him, he revealed that he, in fact, knew nothing, but could help her find out. She had no-one else to help her, no relations or friends to count on, and, at that period, working with someone else, even if he was a known fraud, seemed nicer than working on the entire thing on her own. So she begged him to stay. At first, he was nice enough, helping her whenever she needed help, doing whatever she wanted. But then he started taking advantage of her, exchanging his help with her time in bed. She always felt dirty and used, especially during the Hong Kong case. There was no one with more relief when he was dropped off at Hong Kong without a ticket for Skye. No more man to abuse her. Though it had come at the price of AC's trust, and Skye hated herself entirely for it. Because, she now knew, she had fallen in love with him from day one.

"So that's why you 'betrayed us," He says, thoughtfully.

"I'm sorry AC," she whispers, leaning in slowly to his embrace.

"I've warned you, it'll take a lot more to make me not forgive you," he says, hugging her in a comforting way.

No more heartbreak for me, Skye thinks, just a man whom, in his arms, no one can ever touch me.

They move to Lola slowly, kissing passionately after explaining themselves to each other. Two orphans, one's an alien, another's a zombie, but they loved each other very much, wanted nothing more than to always have each other in their arms.

Coulson fires up Lola, deciding to drive instead of fly back. "So, how'd you find the country club?" he asks carefully, not wanting his own feelings to be broken, but very much liking to hear an honest opinion from Skye. The food's good ambience, never better, I liked it there," she says, smiling. It was nice to know what stories he had been hiding all this while. Coulson nods in agreement.

How much he loves Skye! And yet how little he knows about her! The rest of the journey is spent in comfortable silence to the radio, each exhausted after their long day.

Immediately upon reaching the Bus, they barge into Coulson's office. Coulson picks out a t-shirt and boxers to wear for a proper good night's sleep while offering Skye an extra robe. Within minutes, they're asleep, screw the team's idea of inappropriateness.

In her arms, Phil George Coulson knows he'll never feel heartbreak again.


End file.
